Failing Health System also Menaces Wisconsin Jobs

By Roger Bybee

Milwaukee, Wis.

The Grim Reaper of outsourcing of job loss now shadows gleaming
office parks in Waukesha and the Fox Valley as well as sooty factory
neighborhoods in Kenosha and Manitowoc.

Not only are industrial jobs shipped off to Mexico and China, but
now even highly-paid professional jobs are being "outsourced" to
India and other misery-wage nations. A new study by researchers from
Cornell and the University of Massachusetts estimates the loss of
406,000 US jobs to these nations in 2004.

Part of our government's response must be to remove all tax
incentives to corporations that reward shifting jobs overseas and
stashing profits (recently estimated at 31% of total US corporate
profits) in "tax havens" like Bermuda. We must insist that huge,
highly-profitable corporations reciprocate the loyalty shown by the
workers and taxpayers who subsidized their prosperity

At the same time, we must also recognize that holding down
health-care costs is one of the most central ways to stop outsourcing
and restore our economic strength. Even our most responsible and
conscientious employers face ever-intensifying pressures because of
spiraling health-care costs. Since 2000, US healthcare premiums have
soared by a staggering 59%.

That means Wisconsin employers, especially small firms, face huge
difficulties because of unaffordable health premiums. How much of the
rising costs can they pass on to good employees in terms of
deductibles and co-pays and still retain them? In Wisconsin, workers'
share of premiums has climbed by 49% since 2000, while workers' wages
have crept up by only 12.2%.

Even big corporations like the US auto firms now find themselves
pushed to the wall by US health costs. It now costs $900 to $1300
more to produce an auto in the US than in Canada. The differential is
a stunning $4 an hour more per worker in the US.

Why are US health costs so much higher than elsewhere? It's due
chiefly to America's massive and parasitic insurance/HMO bureaucracy.
"As much as half the health-care dollar never reaches doctors and
hospitals -- who themselves face high overhead costs in dealing with
multiple insurers," estimates Dr. Marcia Angell, former
editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Despite per-person health-care spending that is nearly double any
other nation's, America's overall quality on a variety of key health
indicators is only 15th best in the world, as ranked by the World
Health Organization.

But instead of addressing the twin emergencies of our health-care
crisis and the torrent of jobs leaving America, some politicians are
shamelessly sounding false alarms. To take the heat off of big
campaign donors, President Bush and others have tried to blame
medical-malpractice claims and "frivolous" lawsuits for the outflow
of jobs and soaring health premiums. Tort "reform" is the answer, he
informs us.

But by tort "reform," the president means effectively closing the
courtroom doors to ordinary citizens who have suffered harm at the
hands of medical providers or big corporations. In reality, this
alleged legal "crisis" is totally fabricated: The rate of tort
filings has actually been falling since 1975. Moreover, the Consumer
Federation of America reports that malpractice costs are at their
lowest point in history, just 55 cents of every $100 spent on health
care.

Clearly, the election-year rhetoric of Bush and others offers only
preposterous explanations and non-solutions for our job losses and
soaring health costs. Depriving us of our Constitutional rights will
neither halt the outflow of good jobs or curb skyrocketing health
costs

Instead of Bush's clumsy attempt at misdirecting public concern,
we need to deal squarely with the core of the problem: the unchecked
power of the for-profit bureaucracies of the insurers, HMOs, and the
drug companies. These bureaucracies consume vast resources through
wasteful duplication, huge CEO pay, enormous overhead, and ruthless
pricing practices. This is where serious cost-cutting must begin.

As we face this election and beyond, both our physical and
economic health in Wisconsin depend on serious reform of our failing,
costly healthcare system.